Pg 29—He claims most people believe in God b/c they were raised that way. This reminds me of a debate Lennox had with Peter Singer. Peter was critical of religion because, in his mind, people simply believe what their parents raised them to believe. So in his view people are religious not because it is true but because they were raised that way. Lennox, winsomely, asked Mr. Singer if his parents were atheist to which Peter said, "Yes". So the sword cuts both ways. Is Peter an atheist just because his parents raised him that way?

Pg 35--This has to be by far one of my favorite things David Mills said. This is a Q/A format. The question was "Even though you don't believe that He (Jesus) was God, do you believe that jesus Christ, the man, lived on Earth?" To which Mills replies, "Probably Not." WOW!!!! This shows that David Mills is either a complete liar or a totally uneducated bafoon. Maybe he needs to do a little homework before writing a book. Absolutely no historian denies the historical nature of Jesus of Nazareth. I wonder if he has ever heard of Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Thallus, Phlegon, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Emperor Hadrian, The Jewish Talmud, Lucian, etc... When you take all these NON-Christian sources and piece them together we get a story congruent with the Gospel narrative.

Pg 48--This is a popular but fallacious claim. He argues that more people have been killed by Christians than any reason conneted to atheism. I wonder if he has ever heard of Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, or Hitler? It seems as if Mr. Mills missed a lot of history classes in school. The deaths by Christians fails to compare to the millions slaughtered in the name of atheism just in the 20th century.

Pg 64--This guy never ceases to amaze me. After admitting the great atrocities by Stalin, Mao, etc.. he says, "Is it really fair to condemn a school of though for perversions and abuses of its teachings?” HA!! So if Christians commit atrocities (pg. 48) then God isn't real but if Atheists commit atrocities then we can't criticize them?!?! This is genius.

The lies, logical fallacies and double standards are amazing in this book. I don't know how he pulled it off!!

I just finished a book called "Atheistic Universe" by David Mills. It was on a few top 10 lists for atheistic books so I figured I would pick it up. I have to admit from the start that this book was a huge dissapointment. It presented no challenges, used old dead arguments against Christianity, attacked staw men and was just lack luster. But I want to spend the next few blog post critiquing it.

Pg 17--He argues that Christians say that a "moral" act is equivalent to a "Chrisitan" act. He then concludes, "The logical problem posed by these definitions, however, is that non-Christians...must necessarily be perceived as unethical--or at least less ethical--when compare to "true" Christians, simply because they hold differing religious beliefs." Well this is absolutely absurd, not what we believe, and it doesn't logically follow. Even if we equated a moral act with a Christian act we never say that non-Christians cannot do moral/Chrisitan acts. Therefore, his argument doesn't follow and is a straw man.

Pg 17--He also argues that since Christian's claim their beliefs are absolutely and positively true then it leads to "religious bigotry and prejudice--and to Holy War." Well does David Mills not understand he is claiming what he believes is absolutely and positively right? Does that mean that an atheistic belief also leads to bigotry and prejudice against Christians? Will his belief lead to an un-Holy War? The sword cuts both ways. Furthermore, claiming that your belief is absolutely correcy doesn't necessarily lead to war.

Pgs 19-20--I really don't know what he was doing here. Let me explain. He went on a two page rant against people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter so that he could criticize Christianity. I have no clue how they political activist represent Christianity in any fashion. That would be like me attacking a buddhist priest to critique atheism.

Pg 20--This part was great. He complained of the ad hominem attacks when he wrote his book. This is laughable because he just spent 2-3 pages attacking people (ad hominem) so that he could attack the validity of Christianity!!! Hello Pot my name is Kettle

Pg 28--He gives the lame argument "I don't believe in the Biblical God just like I don't believe in the Greek gods...because there is no evidence." This would be a justifiable position if we were to put on a blindfold. That is, I don't believe in Zeus for the same reason he doesnt...no objective evidence. BUT I do believe in the Biblical God because of the plethora of evidence that points to His existence. Therefore, this is another straw-man. Instead of dealing with the evidence he claims there is none. This is like a lawyer who defends their client by constantly arguing that the prosecution has presented zero evidence against the defendent when all the while there is 50 pieces of evidence sitting on the courtroom table.

Pg 29--He claims the burden of proof is on the Christian to prove there is a god because the atheist "lacks belief". This is a pseudo-definition of "atheism" (see my previous blog post here).

We are only on the first 30 pages of the book and this guy is full or nonsense. Aren't you looking forward to the next week of blog posts?!?!

The title to this article is a key question in talking with atheists today. The neo-atheists are claiming that 'atheism' is not a belief system but a lack thereof. They relate it to Christians not believing in the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster, Zeus, etc... They argue that we don't call ourselves 'A-Zeusites' so therefore they do not need to defend their position. Satan is so crafty and this is why it is important to know a person's position and how they define things before arguing so you are not caught debating straw-men. The first thing I would ask is "What do you mean by atheist?". There is really a blurring of two different views here. The first (traditional atheism) is when a person is making a truth claim that God does not exist. The second way to take the term 'atheist' is a person who lacks a belief in God because they haven't investigated the evidence. With the first person they must absolutely defend their poisition for they are making a truth claim along with the Christian. We say God exist they say He does not. We both share the burden of proof. With the second position though they want to have their cake and eat it too. They are technically saying "I don't know if God exist and therefore I do not have any burden of proof". That is fine if they wanted to stop there but that's the problem is that they can't. The further go on to argue (illogically) that "Because I don't know if God exists then therefore He doesn't exist". Now they have driven themselves right back into the burden of proof problem that the traditional atheist has.Furthermore notice the non sequitor here. Just because you don't know if something exists doesn't mean it doesn't. Lets take ourselves back a few hundred years to the debate on whether the earth was flat or round. Let's say an inquisite person hadn't come to a firm conclusion yet and stated "I don't know if the world is round." Would that make the world flat?!?! Of course not. It is more a statement about their worldview (pardon the pun) rather than a truth claim. Now if they went on to say "I don't know if the world is round therefore it isn't round." then we would call them ridiculous. This is the same sort of semantical gymnastics the neo-atheists are trying to play on us today. Beware of their craftiness and don't get caught in the world games. Make them define their poisition. For someone to hold a position that they don't have to defend they must state "I don't know if God exist" and stops there. But if they do that they cannot reject the Christian position. For as soon as they do (by saying "God does not exist") then they have made a truth claim and must support it.